Increase Mouse Pointer Visibility in Windows 8

About Increasing Mouse Pointer Visibility

While using Windows 8, many users might want to increase mouse pointer visibility in order to get a clear view of the position of the mouse. With the increased mouse pointer visibility, it also becomes easier for the users to follow the movements of the pointer when the mouse is moved. Increasing mouse pointer visibility can be helpful for the users with weak eyesight, or for the ones who are new to computer field.

Options to Configure

In order to improve mouse visibility for people with weak eyesight, following mouse settings must be configured accordingly:

Mouse Motion

Users can configure the motion of the pointer when mouse is moved. With the reduced mouse motion speed, it becomes easier for users to follow the pointer, and have good control over the mouse at the same time.

Snap To

‘Snap To’ is a feature in Windows 8 that automatically places the mouse pointer at the default button every time a dialogue box or a confirmation box is displayed. This feature is suitable for the people with weak eyesight, as well as for the ones who are new to Windows and are not well versed with the settings and configurations.

Pointer Trails

When pointer trails is enabled in Windows 8, a trail of a pointer is displayed every time the pointer moves on the screen. With the help of pointer trails, visibility of the movement of the pointer is remarkably increased.

Pointer Location

Windows 8 allows users to enable pointer position feature. When this feature is enabled, the operating system displays the current position of the pointer by creating a ring animation around it, every time Ctrl key is pressed.

Customize Pointers

The default mouse pointer is a white arrow that faces towards the north-west direction by default. In order to increase the pointer visibility, users can replace the default mouse pointer with any other pointer icon available within Windows. Users can also create a customized mouse pointer using third-party applications such as Microangelo.

How to Increase Mouse Pointer Visibility?

Use the user account to log on to Windows 8 computer on which mouse pointer visibility is to be increased.

Click Desktop tile from the Start screen to reach the desktop.

From the desktop screen, hover mouse to the bottom right corner of the window.

From the displayed options, click Settings.

From Settings pane, click Control Panel.

On Control Panel window, click Hardware and Sound.

Click Hardware and Sound

On Hardware and Sound window, click Mouse option under Devices and Printers category from the right pane.

Click Mouse

On Mouse Properties box, go to Pointers Options tab.

On the selected tab, under Motion section, move the slider left or right to decrease or increase the mouse pointer speed respectively.

Under Snap To section, check Automatically move pointer to the default button in a dialog box checkbox to move the pointer to the default button automatically.

Under Visibility section, check Display pointer trails checkbox to show the pointer trails. Optionally slider can also be moved to left or right to decrease or increase the size of pointer trails.

Under same section, check Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key checkbox.

Check All the Checkboxes

On the same Mouse Properties box, go to Pointers tab.

On the selected tab, choose the desired scheme from Scheme drop-down list to customize the mouse pointer.